Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The only things that I can consider safe in my world is my house and my friends and in less than a week I have to leave them both. But that is the price I must pay to live a life outside of my safety zone, and that is the only way I can grow.

I wrote about it in the last entry. I mentioned how I actually care so very much what, in fact, happens to me as far as my safety, my health, and my mental well being. I care so much because I am finally opening up my grasp on my emotions and letting another person in, and this means that I not only am responsible for myself in my own head, I am responsible for myself in hers.

This post won't get mushy. That, I promise. In fact, this post isn't going to be that long. I just felt like letting some of you in on how I am doing.

I just celebrated 18 months of being off the bottle on the 27th. I say "celebrated", but to tell you the truth this is the first time I actually realized it since I thought about it last month. And that is just about the best way I can think of to stay sober. In my years of using I didn't think about how many months it had been since I started drinking. No, it just sort of piled up until it became more or less understood. And that's how I want my sobriety to be: understood. It's getting there. I am happy. Moving, trusting, growing.

I have put my music room together, finally. It has taken me a little over half a year but I am just about at the point where I can start to record the music that I have been working on for some time now. It's going to be here when I get back from my trip, and I'm sure I'll have some ideas to work on from a month of traveling. I can't play if I don't work. Luckily, I have figured out a way to do them at the same time. But I can't do one without the other. Work=life.

My obsession with order is still in full effect. It makes me a bit manic, but it really is for the best. "Mis en place," is French for "a place for everything." It has its origins in cooking but it can be transferred to almost every facet of life. An example: I have lots of pens and pencils everywhere. I also have several pencil holders of varying shapes and designs. If I have a hundred pens but can't find one when I'm on the phone, scrambling to document directions or a phone number, then I might as well just throw them all away. I don't want to do that so I keep them where I can find them. Order=ease.

There have been a lot of deaths lately in the news. People are always dying. Take one cursory look at the obituaries in your local newspaper and you will find people who lived right in your town who don't anymore.

A good friend was recently in the hospital for a semi-serious condition. While I was there visiting him I saw the news about Michael Jackson. I didn't feel a thing. It's not that I am hardened to loss or even intentionally callous. I just have to keep my emotions in place and focus on who and what actually matters in my life. My friend, I love; Michael Jackson, I am familiar with. I, at one point, enjoyed his music and even used to emulate him. Now I emulate my friend because he is stronger than most people I know and more talented than many understand ... though that last part, I am sure, is about to change.

I miss my mother like crazy because I just know she would love my girlfriend. She always knew I would find someone who was right for me and vice versa. I would always downplay it because it made me uncomfortable. Now I want to scream it so loud she could hear me in heaven, if there is such a place.

But I realize that this is what life is, nothing more. I can't have it all. I couldn't have gotten sober any other time in my life, and therefore I would have not been ready had we (Jodi and I) met another time when she was on this earth. The minutes roll on and on and the world travels around and around with its billions of people clinging on for dear life, as if an amusement park ride that never started and has no intention of letting up. We can only choose to let go when we have had enough, or when the ride has taken its toll on us and takes us from it. There are always new people waiting to get on and there are only so many seats. It's not fair and it is the most fair imaginable. It must retain a balance, and we must comply. Whether we feel it is unjust is a matter of opinion, and opinions are as fickle as the breath you just took. In a minute you will forget you even just concentrated on it at all.

But I am not speaking directly to anyone. Please do not be offended. I am merely getting this out as quickly as I can. It feels really, really good.

I have a motto that I use sometimes: "If you have to think about it, you're probably lying." It works in many situations. This is one of them.

I am scared to death to get on that plane on Saturday. I am scared to death that Jodi has to get on one in two weeks. These emotions have always been there, except that I used to be able to ignore them one way or another. Now there is no choice but to be aware, because I don't want to miss a fraction of a second of emotion, of time, of chance, of love, of adventure, of desire, of joy, of life.

I have to go now and take care of a million things. It's quite good for me. The more I do anything, the better I get at it. I don't have to worry about what to bring on Saturday. No, that's been made easy by the many trips I've made with the Chorus in the past. That stuff dictates itself in the closing hours of the pre-trip journey.

I have to clean my house, I have to pay some bills, I have to water the garden, I have to soak my feet, I have to have dinner with Jodi and a friend, I have to look out for tacks on the floor, I have to stretch, I have to sleep, I have to dream, I have to cry my eyes out, I have to laugh my head off, I have to take care of a million things ...